Web Development Life Cycle, Explained

If you’re a marketing entrepreneur, you probably have some clients who have inquired about building their own app. 

To help you and your clients better understand the development process, we’re going to walk you through the Web Development Life Cycle. These stages of the “life cycle” may sometimes be named or described slightly differently. But no matter which white label development team you work with, they’re going to conduct the following 5 steps in one form or another. 

Research

An initial conversation with your client is certainly a great place to start. But it’s not enough to deliver the right app for their business. 

Even though it doesn’t involve one line of code, researching and gathering information is one of the most important stages of app development. We’ll start by partnering with you and your client to determine what their biggest goals are for their apps, and their list of “must-haves.” 

Then, we’ll explore the competitor landscape: we’ll find out if any similar apps already exist, and what they do well vs what they lack. 

All of this research will help us plan out an app that will not only serve your client’s business needs, but will also stand out from the crowd and carry additional value for users. 

Next, we’ll map out every functionality the app will need to have. This may raise additional questions for your client as we determine the specifics of how to build out the product. 

At this stage, we’ll start to think like a user does: what do they most need to access from this app? Which features should be most visible? What information do they need to continue using the app? All of these questions and more will help us develop a successful app design. 

Now for the actual coding piece. 

With prototypes and a clear vision for the app, we’ll be able to start programming the product. The amount of time this takes, and the number of Developers who will work on it, varies based on how complex the app will be. 

Test

Now that the app is built, we’re ready to share it with customers, right?

If only it were that easy. 

Testing is an essential aspect of any app development plan. By reserving time to test out the app, we can thoroughly check every screen and functionality on multiple devices. This way, we catch bugs before customers do, and correct them.

Launch

When we’re satisfied that the app has been thoroughly tested and is working seamlessly, we can officially launch it for customers. 

The launch plan will vary based on the business, and we’ll work closely with you to develop a strategy for sharing the app with customers and encouraging downloads. 

Maintain

Too often, this step is overlooked. 

Even a relatively simple app requires some form of maintenance over the years. You’ll want to keep the app updated with all of your most current business information, correct bugs, make sure it’s working efficiently as technologies change, and keep the data you bring in with the app secure. That’s why our team is always available to offer ongoing maintenance even after your app goes live. 

Ready to get started? Reach out to us for a quote, and to find out how we work with marketing agencies to provide reliable, state of the art app development services.